Potholes are the pits, Portlanders say

Stephanie Yao/The OregonianMonster pothole on Northeast Grand Avenue on the north end of the Interstate 84 overpass was one of 280 called in to the Portland pothole hot line last week.

Sam Adams, on his first day as transportation commissioner back in 2004, donned an orange jumpsuit and joined a city pothole crew.

Adams has maintained a close relationship with potholes throughout his time in City Hall. He pushed — but later dropped — a plan to charge a street maintenance fee. During his campaign for mayor last spring, he released a video that showed him calling in to report a pothole outside his campaign headquarters.

And after he was sworn in as Portland's first openly gay mayor, Adams said, "There is no gay pothole and no straight pothole. They're just potholes."

Just potholes, maybe.

But the bone-rattling, front-end-misaligning, bike-destabilizing pavement defects provide a primary point of contact between city residents and their government.

Hot line callers also report potholes on streets in other cities and counties and on freeways and state highways such as Powell Boulevard and 82nd Avenue.

"I've taken calls from the coast," Schillaci says. The city refers those calls to the correct jurisdiction and then gets back to the caller to let them know.

Callers also report sinkholes, ditches and utility cuts.

By the numbers

Number of potholes filled in 2008: 4,812

Number of calls to the hot line in 2008: 947

Number of calls last week: 280

Street maintenance backlog: 1,250 lane-miles in 2006

Maintenance budget: $33.2 million

Workers on typical pothole crew: 2

Time for typical pothole repair: 30 minutes

Most of the time, the city repairs the potholes within 24 hours, but sometimes bad weather or other problems force crews to do a temporary patch, then return when the weather improves to make a permanent repair.

Last year, the city took 947 calls on the hot line, and crews filled 4,812 potholes.

Typically, the city uses two-person crews, one raker and one utility worker, but sometimes four or five people make up a crew, if traffic control is needed. The city deploys two or three crews on a normal day. Last week, five crews hit the streets to clear up the backlog.

Third and Fourth avenues downtown have taken a beating from TriMet buses while the transit mall is under construction. "It's like Swiss cheese out there," Schillaci said.

The use of chains and snow tires during the storm added to the damage.

A pothole repair generally takes about a half-hour, but some particularly gnarly ones take longer, Schillaci said. Often, crews dispatched to fix one pothole will also take care of two or three more on the same street.

Portland potholes are caused by failing road surfaces along with high amounts of moisture and heavy traffic loads. Water seeps into the pavement, freezes and expands, then thaws. Crews repair potholes by cleaning out the pit, placing new asphalt and compacting it.

Portland's older streets aren't built to take the stress of today's heavy traffic and tend to deteriorate quicker.

Modern pavement design is about 20 years old, says Kevin Williams, senior public works supervisor.

Pothole hotlines

To report a pothole in Portland, call the hot line: 503-823-2867

If your pothole isn't on a Portland street, here are some other numbers:

• Gresham: 503-618-2626

• Fairview: 503-665-9320

• Wood Village: 503-667-6211

• Troutdale: 503-674-3300

• Multnomah County: 503-988-5050

• Clackamas County: 503-650-3262

• Washington County: 503-846-7623

• Beaverton: 503-526-2220

"Take an old street like Southeast Holgate," Williams said. The street is built with 8 or 9 inches of aggregate, topped with 3 to 4 inches of asphalt. "If we were building that street today, we'd use 10 inches of aggregate and 6 to 8 inches of asphalt."

Potholes are symptoms of a broader problem. Big chunks of the city's 4,000-mile street network are in disrepair, and the backlog of unmet repair needs grows larger every year.

A 2006 city audit called attention to the lack of preventive maintenance and recommended that the city shift its focus from fixing the worst problems to spending money preserving streets while reducing long-term cost of maintenance. In an update last year, the auditor's office said the city is doing a better job, but preservation work is still declining.

The city's maintenance budget has been flat for the past five years, rising slightly with cost-of-living increases, from $31.2 million in 2004-05 to $33.2 million in 2008-09. Officials said the slipping gas tax revenues will lead to $5 million in cuts this fiscal year.

Officials explain that gas tax revenues — undermined by fuel-efficient cars and people driving less — have not kept pace with increased costs of asphalt and other products. Also, revenue from parking meters, the other major source of road money, has been spent on other things. An increase in rates went to help pay for the transit mall renovation.

The city last reported the maintenance backlog in 2006 at about 1,250 lane-miles, or more than 30 percent of the city's improved streets. The city hasn't updated this figure because it is replacing the antiquated computer system for tracking the problem.

Last year, Adams pegged to cost of the unmet maintenance at $442 million.

"I am obsessed with potholes," Adams acknowledged.

The mayor said polling shows Portlanders feel they can't afford to pay a new fee for street maintenance, so that idea is on hold for now.

In the meantime, however, he plans to do what he can to keep up with potholes, including more promotion of the hot line. "We are going to put signs up on our busiest streets reminding people to report potholes," he said.

As for the pothole in front of his campaign headquarters, Adams said a crew came out and fixed it the same day he reported it.

Gresham city leaders say they expected that weeks of cars driving with chains would tear up the roads. The roads were already in bad shape because many cities, including Gresham, have had to cut infrastructure money after losing the gas tax, according to city spokeswoman Laura Bridges-Shepard.

Crews are assessing potholes now and plan to begin working this week to fix them. They'll be tackling issues section by section, Bridges-Shepard says, to save money.